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All Rise...

How far beyond he Valley of the Dolls? As far as hallucinogenic drugs could take young screenwriter Roger Ebert, apparently. Although Judge Jennifer Malkowski is more afraid that he may have written this without their influence...

The Charge

"This is my happening and it freaks me out!"

Opening Statement

The opening title card of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls explains for
legal reasons that this is not a sequel and is "wholly original." I've
never seen the original Valley of the
Dolls; I think that might be a good thing. I don't know how direct director
Russ Meyer and screenwriter Roger Ebert's supposed parody is, but as a
stand-alone feature, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is perhaps the
most ridiculous movie I've ever seen.

Facts of the Case

SPOILER ALERT! I will be discussing the entire "plot" of this
glorious cult classic.

Kelly (Dolly Read), Casey (Cynthia Myers), and Pet (Marcia McBroom) are
small-town gals in their own rock band. They and their manager, Harris (David
Gurian), hit the road for Los Angeles, where they become a smash hit as The
Carrie Nations. They're helped along by rock producer Ronnie "Z-Man"
Barzell (John La Zar)—one weird cat who speaks in faux Shakespearean
dialogue. All of the new arrivals get caught up in L.A.'s late '60s culture of
sex, drugs, and—obviously—rock 'n' roll.

After a long string of various sexual pairings, the film climaxes, so to
speak, with a trippy party at Z-Man's. Z-Man, Casey, her lesbian admirer Roxanne
(Erica Gavin), and gold-digging pretty boy Lance (Michael Blodgett) take big
helpings of all kinds of drugs together. Then Z-Man suddenly flips out, reveals
that he is actually a woman, and goes on a killing spree. Things end happily for
the surviving characters in a triple wedding.

The Evidence

This bizarre mix of soft-core porn, soap opera melodrama, horror carnage, and
rock musical results in a film that is beyond hilarious. The reason that it
works is because Meyer told his actors to play this absurd screenplay straight.
It's hard to tell whether they realized how ludicrous the screenplay is or not,
but the actors play the whole thing as high drama, which is exactly what makes
the film so, so funny. The cast is a collection of Meyer's usual women with
"bit tits" and "square-jawed" men. Read as the lead singer
of The Carrie Nations is comically mismatched with her voice double for the
songs, making her admirable attempts to lip-synch pretty futile. Read also slips
in and out of her British accent frequently. The Carrie Nations are pretty fun,
sounding like a mix of free-love rock and riot grrl wailing.

The whole thing is a crazy, mixed-up showcase for every cultural cliché
of the flower power generation. Ebert actually scripts lines like, "Hey
man, don't bogart that joint," and "I don't know, like, uh—maybe
all you need is love." Here's a sample of the rapid-fire dialogue that goes
along with the rapid-fire cutting in the first party scene:

This is also a screenplay that commands about a couple having sex,
"Pray, let them joust in peace!," and has one-liners like,
"You're a groovy boy. I'd like to strap you on sometime!" Sometimes it
seems like Ebert doesn't even realize the comical absurdity of his scripting.
During the murder rampage, Casey calls her friends for help, yelling into the
phone, "Z-Man's killing everyone!" Pet, who answers the phone, tries
to clarify: "Z-Man's killing what?" Is "what" Z-Man's
killing really the crucial component of this communication?

Some of the most ridiculous scenes deserve specific attention. The lesbian
romance is bizarre, with Roxanne cast as the predator and somehow looking an
awful lot like Rebecca's Mrs. Danvers.
Their sex scene must be the origin of the confusion about "what lesbians
do": Roxanne grinds in the air a full foot above Casey's body. Casey
then appears to be in orgasmic ecstasy despite the fact that Roxanne's hands are
clearly visible and their bodies are still barely touching. Of course, long,
long fingernails abound. Ouch.

There is also a minor character of an old German man who is then implicated
as a Nazi (apparently an obsession of Meyer's). In the middle of Z-Man's
Manson-esque drug-induced murder spree in the Hollywood hills, he takes time out
to chase down and slaughter this old guy on the beach. Stabbing him with a
medieval-style sword, he growls, "You beg for innocence while the cry of
six million innocents still rings in your ears? They are waiting for you!"
This scene is impossibly random.

Finally, there is the long-suffering Harris, who ends up in a wheelchair
after a suicide attempt. His paralysis gives Ebert and Meyer an excuse to invent
some really awkwardly funny scenarios. Harris tries to participate in the
climactic rescue, but can't get his wheelchair out of the car. Then he is
miraculously cured just as they have discovered all the bodies, which makes
everyone insensitively jubilant. Finally, a recovering Harris is treated to a
rugged hike along a rocky, mountain stream…on crutches! So Beyond the
Valley of the Dolls wins awards for "most bizarre Holocaust revenge
murder," "most earnest look at the challenges involved in fighting
crime from a wheelchair," "most insensitively timed celebration of
cured paralysis," and "most sadistic recreational activity for someone
on crutches."

Finally, the film ends with a long montage of each character, accompanied by
narration explaining their moral transgressions. About Casey and Roxanne, the
narrator says in fake tolerance, "Casey and Roxanne: light and shadow.
Theirs was not an evil relationship, but evil did come because of it." Even
minor characters like Aunt Susan are judged strangely, "Susan Lake: perhaps
too pure. Excessive goodness can often blind us to the human failings of those
less perfect." When the credits finally roll, Ebert explains that,
"All the bad people are dead and all the good people are married." The
misplaced moralizing at the end would work well as satire, but unfortunately is
the most earnest part of the film. As Meyer explained once, "anyone who
transgressed in terms of American morality had to die."

This DVD release is part of Fox's "Cinema Classics Collection" and
the company goes all out for this bizarre "classic" that once so
embarrassed them that they left its production out of the studio history
entirely. The picture looks great, with the garish colors and spot-on focus well
preserved. The sound quality is less impressive, rendering the dialogue quite
muddy. The two-disc set comes in one standard-size case with blue plastic, which
is then housed in an outer slip case. A commentary track with a wide assortment
of cast members is a real fun trip. The gang reminisces about making the film,
knowing Meyer, and life in the 1960s, with plenty of juicy innuendoes about sex
and drugs. The track is littered with fun exclamations like, "Oh my God,
look at her tits!," and amusing right-on-the-money questions such as,
"How many montages are there in this movie?" One of them even makes
the major understatement that the dialogue "was not conversational."
Summing up the entire film when commenting on one line, someone says: "It
was so bad it was great!"

What should be the crowning jewel of this DVD release, an unimaginable
full-length commentary track by screenwriter Roger Ebert, is slightly
disappointing. For all of us who've ever exclaimed, "WTF?!? Roger Ebert
wrote this movie?!?," we now have his commentary to help us revel in that
laughable fact for two hours. Those who have ever balked at one of his reviews
and then found out with delight that he scripted this ridiculous, ridiculous
film will not get the satisfaction of seeing him squirm much here. Ebert, like
the other critics interviewed for the featurettes, regards the movie as a
brilliant parody. He even seems to like the dry, reductive moralizing narrative
that ends the movie as an earnest wrapping up that gives it an "epic"
feel. He claims that Meyer scripted that whole section and implies that he did
it as a sincere ending, calling it "unashamedly old-fashioned in its
intention and its delivery." He seems charmed by the way he wrote the
characters to "immediately say exactly what's on their mind" and lay
out their motivations—a quality I could easily imagine him attacking in
other reviews. Whether you think the film is genius or garbage, the fact that
Ebert tries to do a dry historical-academic spiel as his commentary track is
pretty silly. Luckily, he breaks from that formula many times, getting
sidetracked by just how silly the movie is. At one point, he launches into a
socio-historical explanation of the "sexual milieu" of the '60s, but
then sighs and refreshingly finishes, "They had a lot of sex, let's face
it." the When the boxer character comes into the party, Ebert lapses into
exasperated critic mode, saying impatiently, "He was inspired by Muhammad
Ali, I guess. I don't know," then seems to remember that he, for
once, is the one responsible for the content of the film and laughs, "I
guess I should know, I wrote the screenplay."

Disc Two is packed with five featurettes, three theatrical trailers, two
casting sessions (the first with Michael Blodgett and Cynthia Myers, the second
with Harrison Page and Marcia McBroom), six photo galleries with more than 300
photos, and a brief introduction by John "Z-Man" La Zar. He
frighteningly intones, "BVD is on DVD. BVD is on DVD. BVD is on DVD."
A couple of the photos confirm the rumor that this was Pam Grier's first film. I
never managed to spot her in the party scene where she supposedly appears, but
she is clearly visible in three or four of these production stills. Above,
Beneath and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is the longest featurette, at
about 30 minutes. Its production values are quite high and it has interviews
with lots of cast members (many surprisingly well preserved 36 years later),
Ebert and other crew members, and film critics who love the movie. They treat us
to some good stylistic analysis of Meyer's auteur filmmaking. We also find out
that Meyer got along well with Ebert because "The man loves tits." The
rest of the featurettes are shorter and topical: one on the music, one on the
cultural context, one on the lesbian love scene, and one in which the cast and
crew picks the "best of" in categories such as best lines and best
breasts. We even get a set of four groovy lobby cards! Stuff like this used to
give audiences a souvenir to make their movie-going experience into something
tangible way back in the early 20th century. I have to admit I let out a little
gasp of delight when I found these cards inside my DVD box, so I guess that
marketing tool still works.

Closing Statement

Critic David Ansen of Newsweek articulates the difficulty of
evaluating Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and what makes the film so
memorable: "It completely scrambled my notions of what's a good movie and
what's a bad movie. Because it rides that thin line between being absolutely
wonderful and absolutely awful."

The Verdict

Guilty. So, so guilty. Beyond the Valley
of the Dolls and beyond so-bad-it's-good. This one is "so bad it's
great!"